The work of safety oversight

The work of safety oversight and incident analysis is centrally about knowledge. For investigators, effectively overseeing safety means 

They don t have any overall picture and everything is done in little teams, and sporadically. Reporting is in pockets with nothing over the top of it. That s not good. Everybody can be having the same problems and not knowing it, which would mean a nice global fix. So the overview is important. (Si3-1) 

For instance, incident reports provided investigators with a clear indication that problems around the intermittent detection of fumes in the cockpit persisted, despite the ongoing efforts to solve them. One investigator described how an issue might be addressed at all the relevant board meetings and committees, but then we would see that there is 

Getting incident data is only the first step. The key - and the key challenge - is then to make sense of it, to understand it and to interpret its meaning for organisational safety. To do this, investigators work to contextualise incidents, drawing on their own knowledge and 

I don t have the skills to. . . make technical assessments that are beyond my expertise. But my experience and basic knowledge of the subject is adequate for me to decide or consider whether any level of action is required. (S13-7) 

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The work of safety oversight is, in large part, bound up with chasing up incidents and finding out more about them it involves investigating. 

Cascading of work Lack of safety oversight Specify the contractual... 

Other OECD activities in the environment, health, and safety areas are concerned with pesticides chemical accident prevention, preparation, and response pollutant release and transfer registers harmonization of regulatory oversight in biotechnology, and the safety of novel foods and feeds. These activities are closely connected with the work in the Chemicals Programme, and are carried out in cooperation with other parts of the OECD and other international organizations. 

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